Myra moved but the bullet hit part of her arm. It pierced right through all that bark. Was her gun that strong?

My skin wasn’t as thick as Myra’s bark. She’d be easily able to headshot me. 

It was a good thing then that Myra gave us that training earlier. Evading and attacking from afar. Except, I could only do the first one. How the fuck was I going to do the second one? 

They cleared the entire room of objects. Nothing was here except the “hard light” covered walls. Maybe I might find something down the hallway?

“Silence,” Fedora Lady said to Myra. “Vermin like you shouldn’t be allowed to speak. I will impose justice upon your lawless actions.”

Lawless? Does this lady realize the irony of her statement? Pretty sure she was way more lawless than us. At least we are technically affiliated with the BID. Okay, well more like very loosely connected with the Professor, who is part of the BID. Actually, the BID would probably just kill us both. What the fuck am I talking about?

Fedora Lady continued firing while charging toward Myra with her sword. Myra struck out with vines, but Fedora Lady easily cut through them as if there were tiny twigs. Myra managed to dodge some of the shots, but she still got hit and stumbled. 

A minute passed, and it was kind of entrancing to see Fedora Lady’s usage of both her gun and sword against Myra. Myra was clearly not able to keep up. She managed to get a swipe at Fedora Lady with some of the spikes on her armor, but those either got parried with the sword or did nothing against her hard light clothes.

Wait a minute, I was getting into a bad habit of just watching things fight. I couldn’t let Fedora Lady take out Myra. 

“Hey Barb!” I called out. “Give me some vines!” This room may not have objects I could throw, but I could definitely get something out of Myra’s vines.

She sent some of them my way. Yes! 

But then Fedora Lady turned her attention to me. She fired bullets at me. I zig-zagged toward Myra’s vines. Come on. They stopped coming towards me. Fedora Lady was cutting them off. Fuck. I didn’t want to get any closer. 

But at least I was distracting her from Myra. She was no longer stumbling as much and managed to put some distance between her and Fedora Lady. I broke off pieces of the closest vine. This will have to do. I began chucking them at Fedora Lady. She dodged a couple of the shots and blocked some with her sword. But they had so much force behind them she was pushed a couple of feet back.

Fedora Lady returned fire on me. Fuck. This wasn’t fair at all. I had to go all the way to Myra’s vines to attack her. Why couldn’t I have a ranged superpower? Wait a minute, Ento could do it. Her syringes were ranged. But that would mean she wouldn’t be able to collect monsters for me. 

And I wasn’t sure if they could pierce her clothing. I’d have to be lucky and hit her neck or face. Okay, I’ll do it if I get anywhere near in danger.

Danger. Huh. Was I becoming too careless? I mean, I was able to dodge the bullets fine. But what if I messed up? I could seriously die. Maybe I should summon my clones over here?

Agh! I was getting kind of greedy. I wanted to collect more monsters. 

Sadly, even though I was able to hit Fedora Lady with more vine twigs, the best I could do was push her back. This wasn’t working at all. Maybe I could get SpookyErind to freeze her in a time bubble?

“How annoying,” Fedora Lady said as her gun clicked. Out of ammo? “This won’t be the end bandits.” She ran towards the wall and … sunk into it. What?

Is that how she teleported behind us? 

 

Meanwhile, Ento and SpookyErind were in the first mutant room. At least they weren’t at any risk of dying. 

Ento had already taken three of their experiments. Using a combo of both two ant syringes and two spider syringes, I was easily able to take them without any issue. One was a human with extremely long limbs, each one branching into separate different ones. It was like a human tree. The second one was some kind of green-colored human. It was pretty large and barely fit into my pocket even when shrunk. It had a weird sword gun attached to its right limb. And the third one was a human with two heads, four arms, and four legs. All very interesting experiments. Which were also all mine now.

There were about a dozen experiments in this room.

Hey, maybe I should eat the rest of these with the face I gave you, SpookyErind said. 

“Huh?” I had Ento ask. “Why is that? And why just you?”

I imagine some Adumbrae would come to fight our main body right? She asked. She didn’t continue and waited for me to answer.

She was being cryptic again? Okay, so she was heavily implying more Adumbrae would come to fight me and Myra. And I’ve been kind of having trouble here with Fedora Lady. So she wanted to turn into Red Hood to eat them. 

But why just her?

You can help me grow real big, she said. How was I going to do that?

Remember last time? Last time? I really needed her to stop being cryptic. I shouldn’t be spending this much brainpower. But you are showing how smart you are.

I guess. But last time? The last time we turned into Red Hood together was when I was first testing Ento. And when our Red Hood faces ate the 2M’s… Oh! I get it now. 

We’re so smart, she cheered. She held out her right hand and golden liquid rose out.  It turned into solid red with a fanged snout. SpookyErind took off her face mask and replaced it with the Red Hood mask.

She instantly grew in height and had to tilt her head down to see Ento. I could see through SpookyErind’s eyes that Ento looked like she was a war veteran in a meat grinder. What the fuck is that comparison? Her clothes were filled with bullet holes. Beneath her goggles, bloodstains surrounded her right eye. But you wouldn’t be able to tell how she got injured. Her goggles were fully repaired. Huh.

Does that mean Ento can regenerate her goggles? She couldn’t regenerate the rest of her clothes. That was pretty weird. Although, what would happen if her goggles got destroyed? Would she turn back into Erind? 

SpookyErind patted Ento’s head with her clawed hand. I was about to tell her off for not answering anything for me but then I remembered she couldn’t talk. She let out a growl that sounded like some kind of chuckle.

I was kind of sad I wouldn’t be the one using the Red Hood face, but the only way I could help SpookyErind grow was with Ento. Maybe I could learn more about how she controls Red Hood?

SpookyErind nodded with a growl. Wait a minute, she couldn’t talk, so I had no idea how she would teach me to control it. I hope we could review this afterward. 

“Also, why am I always the shorter and weaker one?” I had Ento ask. 

SpookyErind patted my head again. I pouted. 

“I should have asked you before you transformed,” I said.

SpookyErind growled. I had no idea what she was saying.

“Also, before, didn’t you say I could read your mind since we’re the same?” I asked. “Because I clearly have no idea what you are saying right now.”

SpookyErind did a more angry growl. Ento nearly stumbled back. It was kind of scary seeing her growl at Ento. It felt like her heart skipped a beat. 

A thought ran through the back of my head. Was she going to eat me? But I quickly quashed that thought. She had saved me many times. Also, what good what eating me do? Would a paradox occur since my main body doesn’t exist anymore?

Why wasn’t I feeling as scared? I know I wasn’t like other humans, but I’ve had a very relaxed approach to anything dangerous. Did I think I was just that strong? That SpookyErind wouldn’t harm me? Well, it’s not like she has harmed me. She’s messed with me, and I was even paranoid that she might take over my body. But was she going to harm me? Nah. I still wasn’t fully okay with her though. 

SpookyErind picked Ento up in a hug. “Hey! Put me down!” She growled in response, but it was way more smoother than her previous growls. I imagine she was saying something like “I love you so I would never harm you.” 

“Can you put me down please?” I asked. She bent over and gently placed me on the ground.

“I hate being short,” I said looking up to her.

SpookyErind growled in response. Okay, I have no idea what she’s saying again. 

“Is there a way to learn what you’re saying?” I asked.

She nodded. There was? Or was she just messing with me?

Anyways, I had two ideas on how to grow SpookyErind. The first was the ant syringe. And the second was the bee syringe. I kind of wanted to test the bee syringe out first though. Maybe I was too annoyed at SpookyErind…

She didn’t move from her spot though. I took out the syringe containing the red liquid and injected it into her thigh. I couldn’t feel any sort of pain in her body. Oh right, I tried injecting SpookyErind with a syringe earlier. It didn’t do anything. So I was pretty sure that I can’t make her grow by causing her pain. 

I guess it’s kind of good then the syringes don’t work on me or any of my clones. Otherwise, I might have done something really stupid to myself. What if I shrunk myself to the size of an insect? That would have been bad. Especially since there was no timer on the syringe, so presumably the effects were permanent.

Also, didn’t the bee syringe last for 1 hour? So I would be feeling pain for an hour even if it did work. Was that a good tradeoff for having her grow? Probably not.

An alarm beeped out. Huh?

The rest of the tubes containing human mutants opened and poured out their contents. A bunch of monstrous growls and screeches filled the air. God, that is so loud. Can I turn off SpookyErind’s ears? Her Red Hood’s enhanced senses were facing the full brunt of these musical terrors. Actually, they weren’t very musical at all - I couldn’t discern any kind of rhythm.

Were the 2M’s trying to kill SpookyErind and Ento with the monsters? Let’s turn this against them.

SpookyErind got in front of Ento as the monsters charged us. They tried attacking SpookyErind, but their attacks were pretty weak. I could feel anger and rage swell up in her. I wanted to eat them, but SpookyErind stood still, taking it all. Her body grew and got stronger as the monsters continued attacking her.

I had Ento throw an ant syringe at one of the mutants. It was a human who had eight limbs - each of them arms. All his limbs were even on the ground like a spider, and he was also trying to bite SpookyErind with his mouth. It wasn’t very effective for him though. He started shrinking but still tried attacking SpookyErind. 

I waited another ten seconds before throwing another ant syringe. It turned out that mutants required two ant syringes to shrink at the normal rate, while Adumbrae required three. I wonder what if even stronger Adumbrae would require more syringes. I hope Statue Lady only took three.

The spider human started shrinking fast, and SpookyErind grabbed him as he approached the size of a pill. She started chomping on him. The taste of sweet flesh filled her mouth. Her growth suddenly sped up and she became way bigger. The monsters attacking her probably made her around seven feet tall, but now, she was quickly growing another two feet or so. She growled at the other monsters. 

A small surge of energy also came through all my bodies. I could feel all of us getting stronger, in addition to SpookyErind’s growth. This happened when SpookyErind ate Acid Guy, but the effect wasn’t as strong. Did that mean eating shrunken superpowered creatures made me permanently stronger? And eating stronger creatures made me even stronger.

Also, back when I first was testing out Ento, when SpookyErind and I ate the shrunken humans in our Red Hood Forms, we quickly gained a lot of height. It turned out that Ento synergized well with Red Hood. I could get Red Hood to grow way faster now. Back at the docks, it took me eating a couple of dozen humans to even get anywhere close to two stories tall. But now, I could probably do it with only a dozen humans, or even just a handful of monsters.

Some of the monsters realized the futility of the situation and began attacking Ento. Fuck. But SpookyErind began eating the ones attacking me. 

Whew. I didn’t know if Ento could survive these monsters. One of her main weaknesses is that her syringes are not good against a large number of enemies. Taking 10 seconds to regenerate was really not ideal. Could I ask my Core to make them regenerate faster? I don’t think that’s how it works. It would be cool if it did though.

Just two monsters were left. They looked like twins, but their muscles were extremely huge and their skin was grey. It was as if somebody pumped them up with thousands of steroids. SpookyErind grabbed both of them with her hands, which basically covered their entire torsos. I began throwing ant syringes at them. Once they were both injected with two syringes and shrunk to pill size, SpookyErind put them in her mouth and started chewing. It was kind of crazy how transformed she was. Her claws had grown longer, and fur had grown outside of her body. This was the first time I was seeing Red Hood’s werewolf form close up. Well, technically I did see a bigger version in whatever dream world SpookyErind showed me. 

It was just so different seeing it awake. And to see it begin growing in front of me. SpookyErind had to get down on all limbs to still fit in the room. I don’t think she’d even fit the doorway now. I could also see Ento from SpookyErind’s perspective, and wow, she was small. At least all of my bodies were experiencing a surge in energy. Sharing is caring as they say. What the fuck am I saying?

 

Back at the other warehouse, I was standing next to Myra. 

“You okay?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. “That bitch was really annoying.”

I wanted to point out that Myra probably could have shot her spikes at her, but it was a bad time to reveal that I knew that. 

“Yeah,” I simply agreed with her.

“Thanks for just staying by me as I heal,” she said. Her body got pretty beat up by Statue Lady, and she needed to regenerate her bark armor. “Sorry if it’s boring.”

“Nah, it’s important that I keep you company,” I chuckled. I internally cringed.

Thankfully, Ento and SpookyErind were doing stuff, so it wasn’t a boring wait at all. SpookyErind was currently leading Ento somewhere. I imagine they were coming here. SpookyErind easily broke through the doorframe and surrounding wall. Hopefully they came here before more Adumbrae came over-

Blue electric bolts came down from the left hall.

Armored soldiers came down the hall and started peppering us with electroshock bullets. I hid behind Myra. Fuck. 

“More vines please Barb!” I yelled.

“Sure thing Synchron,” she told me.  I broke apart part of her twigs and threw them at the soldiers. They easily pierced their armor and broke apart into clay. 

“You’re a bit late Finlay,” a female voice called out. Fedora Lady? Fuck. We weren’t prepared to deal with both the soldiers and Fedora Lady. 

“That’s unfair of you Isabella,” one of the soldiers called out. I threw a rock at him and he broke apart into clay. 

“It looks like Calder and Slinky are late,” Fedora Lady said as she opened fire at us. I had to separate from Myra. I couldn’t use her as a tree shield anymore.

We had these two fuckers - Isabel and Finlay attacking us. And it sounded like more Adumbrae were on the way. We needed to get rid of one of them. Finlay seemed like the easiest given how easily his clones died.

“Barb,” I called out. “Use the clay!”

“Got it!” she said as she ran away from Isabel, the Fedora Lady. 

 I ran up to the nearest clay soldier’s remains and picked up a handful. I began throwing pieces at the rest of the soldiers as they came in. It was super annoying dodging both their shots and Isabel’s shots. I ended up taking a hit from one of those hard light bullets.

Ow. That hurt a lot. It pierced right through my left elbow. Why was I feeling way more pain in this mission? A few more of Isabel’s bullets hit me, but I couldn’t let the electroshock bullets hit me. They’d freeze me up and stop my regeneration. 

But Myra and I were whittling away at the clay soldiers, and eventually, they stopped coming in. Now, we had an advantage against Isabel. 

We began pelting her with clay shards, but she was still easily prepared for them.

“Damnit Finlay, where did you go?” she cried out. I had no idea how his power worked, but I think he ran out of clones. Hopefully, more didn’t show up.

“Barb, let’s split up!” I said. Just like how I tried attacking Myra during training, if we split up, then she wouldn’t be able to deal with both of us. 

“I’ll go left,” she called out. I went right.

We split up and continued launching clay at Isabel. She tried firing at us, but her shots became even more erratic. Yes!

I threw a shot and she tripped and fell over. 

“No!” she yelled out. This was it. Goodbye, hard light bitc- 

She sunk through the bottom of the floor before my clay pellet could reach her.

“That’ll teach her!” Myra said energetically. “We did it Synchron!”

“Yeah,” I sighed. I really wanted to kill her. But I guess I should be glad we got rid of her again.

 

Myra and I continued walking through the hard light halls. No 2M’s came out of us, and Ento and SpookyErind managed to leave the warehouse they were in. 

A door was in front of me and Myra. It was a normal door. We opened it, and the world was normal again. I was getting sick of looking at that pitch-black and bright red coatings. The room was an empty warehouse area. I could spot a security camera in the corner. Would they keep sending stuff at us, or retreat again?

“Tree Twerp!” an earthy voice said. A big scaly lizard man was approaching us. 

“Slinky!” Myra called out. These two met before? 

Wait a minute. Is he growing?